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. 2020;2(12):2511-2513.
doi: 10.1007/s42399-020-00656-8. Epub 2020 Nov 27.

The Flood of COVID-19 Publications: a Word of Caution

Punit Tiwari  1 , Harmeet Kaur  2
Affiliations

The Flood of COVID-19 Publications: a Word of Caution

Punit Tiwari et al. SN Compr Clin Med. 2020.

Abstract

The entire world is currently experiencing difficult times with respect to physical, mental, and socio-economic health. The rapid spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) since early 2020 caught the world by surprise. While there are promising developments, to date, there is no available drug or vaccine, and researchers are working around the clock to develop a solution. Sadly, all these crucial efforts are being affected and, at times, misguided and derailed by the publication of fake articles by so-called researchers and perhaps the mismanagement by authentic and predatory journals. The problem is that genuine and good quality articles are getting lost in the crowd. More than ever, it is now the time to bring in stricter controls and to follow due diligence before allowing articles into the public domain. At the same time, it has become life-saving to separate the wheat from the chaff so that the genuine studies of first-hand experience of handling and management of COVID-19 patients, and authentic research is not submerged in this flood of unreliable publications.

Keywords: COVID-19; Fake research; SARS-CoV-2.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of InterestThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Number of COVID-related articles published in recent months [13]
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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